REVIEW: '300' is One For the Ages

Category: 300 News | Posted by:stagewomanjenArticle Date: March 4, 2007 | Publication: Fantasy Moguls | Author: Steve MasonPublication/Article Link:http://news.fantasymoguls.com/originalcontent/2007/03/review_300_is_o.html
Frank Miller’s graphic comic comes to life on the big screen thanks to director Zack Snyder’s directorial virtuosity, and the result is the wildest, bloodiest, most visually striking and flat-out fun movie-going experience in ages. 300 (Warner Bros) is light years more engaging than sword and sandal epics like Gladiator and Troy, and it will be hailed as an immediate classic.

300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., when Persian god-king Xerxes led an army of 250,000 in an invasion of Greece. 300 warriors from Sparta held the Persian army at bay for 3 days at a narrow mountain pass known as “the gates of hell.” That contingency of fierce soldiers was inspired and led by Spartan King Leonidas.

Gerard Butler, far more buff than when he was seen as The Phantom in Joel Shumacher’s film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, is completely commanding as Leonidas. He is given the difficult task of delivering lines like, “Eat a hearty breakfast, for tonight we dine in hell!” and he makes every one of them work.

There have been more than a few zombie movies in the last 5 years, but, for my money, Zack Snyder’s 2004 Dawn of the Dead, the one with Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames and Mekhi Pfifer, was easily the best. Snyder gave the tried-and-true zombie formula a fresh spin, and now he has re-invented the gladiator genre.

The movie invites us into the world of Sparta, a Greek city-state, where boys are taken from their families at age 7 to undergo years of rigorous training in order to become the fiercest of warriors. With the Persian armies sailing toward Greece, Leonidas argues that Greece must fight, but Sparta’s oracles and its governing council disagrees. That leads to a monstrous battle between the Persian horde and only 300 of Sparta’s elite fighting men.

300 is so violent and bloody, it makes Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto seem like a Disney film. This movie revels in over-the-top killing, with swordplay and stabbing and thousands of flying arrows and angry elephants and ticked off rhinos and even an insane-looking giant. If the folks at Guinness keep track of movie beheadings, they have found a new cinematic champ. The battle sequences are so stylized, however, it feels like a comic come-to-life instead of real bloodshed, so it’s never too much to take.

“The Thermopylae Rumble” was shot entirely on Montreal soundstages. This was Snyder’s way of recreating Miller’s graphic comic-style. The actors worked against bluescreen, then CGI backdrops were created scene by scene, finding just the right color and look to match the desired emotional impact of each sequence. Miller and his visual effects wizards played with the contrast and highlights and shadows and shades to give this movie a surreal, fantastical, one-of-a-kind look.

Miller fanboys may be less-than-thrilled with 300’s expanded romantic storyline. Leonidas’ Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey from The Cave and Imagine Me & You) matches wits with traitorous Spartan politico Theron (Dominic West from The Forgotten and Hannibal Rising) in an effort to get her King reinforcements, but even this side-trip works for me. The over-the-top histrionics match the hyper-stylized look and the psychotically supercharged mayhem, and it all adds up to one of the most kick-ass 2 hours of wild fun in movie history.

This isn’t really an actors’ movie. Butler is very good as the testosterone-driven Leonidas, Headey is every bit a queen, and the rest of the 300 have the requisite biceps and washboards to be convincing. Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro, a regular on Lost, plays the Persian king Xerxes. He’s got piercings from head-to-toe and is wearing gold and jewels. There’s something campy about him in full makeup and with a digitally-enhanced voice. It works, but not since Jaye Davidson in Stargate has a villain come across this prissy and androgenous.

In his Henry V moment (like “We few, we happy few” in the St. Crispin’s Day speech), Leonidas announces, “Remember this day men, for it will be yours for all time.” You may not remember Zack Snyder’s 300 “for all time,” but you won’t forget it any time soon.